Author
Topic: Rebuild on the Past(Team ASTC thread)(Closed but if you really want in PM) (Read 967 times)

It had been a successful enough mission, a daring strike into to the untamed wilds between Vale and Vacuo to search one of the recently rediscovered abandoned Lexkvar Industry facilities. It had taken a day to get out here by Bullhead but with the transport in ruins thanks to a close call with a Nevermore it looked like team ASTC had to make their way back on foot, at least until they got connections on their scrolls. The team carried between themselves cameras and sample kits as well as much intact scientific equipment they could carry. It lead to slow movement through the shrubbery which only worsened as they got to the more temperate and therefore forested Valish half of the continent.

Although the slow pace was doing a number on the teams resolve it devastated their resources, even Teddy's pack was mostly empty of food and the group had to rely on scavenging the surrounding environment to survive. Luckily all the students had gone through wilderness survival courses and had a decent idea of what plants you could eat and how to track the wild life. None more so than Calen who had lived in the wilderness for several years, although he deflected all questions about his skills with is normal horrible jokes, but the gaunt boy definitely took advantage of this. 'Accidentally' feeding his team mates hallucinogenic plants simply to liven up the drab atmosphere which had settled over them. It did not succeed.

They had been walking for ten hours to day, for the fourth as the team stumbled upon a town. Hope blossomed in even the most jaded member as they first saw the buildings but as they got closer it quickly wilted. The town was in ruins, long abandoned both by man and grimm the town still remained evidence of some folly venture to expand Vale's boarders. Decaying articles of their former occupants littered the area; books, dolls, even electronics. The town itself was made up of four two story buildings, twice that single story buildings and a large antenna. Despite the bad vibes the town was giving off it was clearly going to be the best place to rest, probably the best place they will find until they get to an actually inhabited village. As such Setsuna called a halt, a quick scan of the area showed no grimm or other threats remained.

A strange mixture of relief and trepidation filled the as they obeyed, some annoyed how easily that action was becoming. Collecting all their gear in one of the two story buildings the team then started to discuss what they should do for the last few hours of the day and the night which will soon fall. Calen was not doing well, mentally or physically. His knees ached from injures old and new and his figure had impossibly grown even more gaunt. Calen's outright refusal to eat anything cooked by the others because very apparent as they grew low on supplies and although he initially played it off as some sort of gallant action even Calen became bored of the act. There had been a growing part of Calen who missed surviving in the wilds by himself, particularly when his team mates were talking, but that was quickly becoming irreverent. Missing his many urban luxuries made the gaunt boy even more irritable than normal, his black hair had grown chaotically and stubble roughed his face consider but that all paled to his suit. What was supposed to be a two, three at the most day mission, had already become a seven day marathon and the suit was not holding up well. Threads torn even losing a button had meant Calen was forced to spend easily an hour a day repairing one on his suits, he had a spare but refused to use it in case they chance upon civilised company.

That was what Calen was doing now, using his semblance to launch himself to the highest point of the town, the antenna, and started collecting the errant threads. The entire town was bathed in a beautiful orange glow from the setting sun.

It had already been a stressful time. Between his normal busy schedule and trying to fit in with his new teammates, Teddy had enough on his plate to deal with. So, it only makes sense that as much would go wrong as possible. Day 7 of what was supposed to be a maximum 3 day mission. Their supplies were horrendously low, even with Teddy's tendency to overpack. The weight that Teddy carried combined with the scientific equipment caused him to have to dip into his aura reserves to fix the damage caused by overexerting himself. By the time they found the abandoned city, Teddy was mentally and physically exhausted.

Teddy set to work quickly in an attempt to get the antenna functional enough to broadcast a distress signal. Solitary work would be helpful for him. The last few days of trying to fit in with the team had been uncomfortable at best. It did not help that the long, boring trek removed most of any small talk topics that any of them could think of. By the end of it, Teddy could not even muster up the energy to be annoyed at Calen's terrible jokes.

Progress was slow. It was obvious to Teddy that there was no way he was going to get this thing working without some sleep. He could not even figure out what parts he needed to be able to start trying to repair it. Laying on the ground with his head on his pack, he stared blankly at the ceiling trying to get his brain working long enough to figure out what to do next.

Anna was ambivalent about her current situation. One one hand, the mission had been a success, Calen's meals were pretty damn good and things were currently peaceful; on the other, they had now been away from civilization for a week, Calen had been a dick several times (the hallucinogens had given her headaches as well as made her attack him on multiple occasions) and there were no books around apart from the wealth of digitized scientific literature they'd been hoarding.

She was currently sitting near the top of the radio tower, pinging her semblance every now and then as a makeshift sentry. Looking upon the surroundings was currently her sole source of entertainment apart from social interaction - but alarm duty was more important than that, surely. Apart from that, when it wasn't her turn to be the lookout, she helped whoever she could. However, lookout had been her job all the time until now, bar the time where she slept with the others in one building or the other.

She spotted a blur - quickly identified as Calen - shooting up the radio tower, stopping mere metres above herself. Her only reaction was a casual "Hey."

By now the signs of self-doubt and guilt were clearly present on the normally cheerful and confident boy's face. Between the unsuccessful attempt to fend the Nevermore away from their transport, the weight of both the scientific...stuff and his own gear--he was regretting bringing his hybrid weapon long ago--and their current situation of little food and rest, the team's leader sat despondently in the shelter they had set up, racking his mind to come up with a solution and failing to keep the voices in his head out. He had started hearing them after Calen's "joke", constantly sneering and laughing mockingly at his pathetic state, and the only way to block them out was to physically exhaust himself past his breaking point. Not that he wasn't already doing that, but it was becoming so common that even that was starting to fail.

He had suffered hardships before, but this one he was not taking well. Out of the four, Anna seemed the most optimistic--not that it was hard, none of the others seemed to even want to talk--but he didn't think she had the knowledge to fix the broken system that Teddy was currently hard at work on. Calen had disappeared somewhere, which Setsuna couldn't even bring up a emotion to describe his feelings about. The situation was not hell, but he reckoned it could be seen from here.

He buried his face in his hands, gritting his teeth as he fought to keep his mental spirit from shattering. If only the voices would just shut up...

'Huh are you already up here Miss Fall? Perhaps I should lay off of the blind jokes considering my own vision seems to be playing up.' Calen remarked clearly trying to start something. Not that even Calen had much energy to put into the taunt and focused more on repairing his suit jacket. Luckily there wasn't much damage today and he quickly hung it up on the post to prevent creases, well more creases.

As the shadows lengthened a few flocks of birds returned to the abandoned town chirping softly as they flew into the upper levels of some of the two story houses. Aside from the birds there was little noise to disturb the party and the sweet pull of sleep was very tempting. As Teddy began rudimental examinations of the tower finding most of the machinery was still there but much of the wiring had worn out and there was no power source. Testing the core machinery would be difficult without turning the entire device on which could damage some of the more fragile components.

His suit repaired Calen leaped down from the tower using his semblance to slow his fall and went off the try his luck hunting. Twilight was normally a good time as most of the wild life was tired themselves, not necessarily paying as much attention as possible. 'I'll be back by dark, we passed a stream on the way here and I want to bathe. Only Setsuna is allowed to peep guys, sorry don't make the rules.' Calen called out, not quite yelling but definitely meant to be heard by everyone. As Calen reached the river bank he quickly stripped down to his small clothes, revealing his scars to the world as he walked slowly into the ice cold river. Careful not to slip on the smooth rocks Calen pulsed his aura, searching for dinner beneath the slow ripples. A significant school of Bass was swimming past and Calen's lightning fast hands managed to grab a few before chancing upon the much easier prey of fresh water clams.

While Calen was away little happened in the camp, a few scares with movement around the edge of town but nothing came close. It was wild life but of course the grimm only needed to catch the team unaware once. It was a good night for star gazing as the sun starting to slip beneath the horizon, they could even make out aircraft flying over. Unfortunately ASTC was still close enough to the desert to really suffer from the cold nights with the bitter desert air carried towards them by the wind. Dropping from slightly uncomfortable to slight below freezing in half an hour.

Returning an hour or so later true to his word just as darkness had truly fallen Calen was ladded heavily with fish, clams and wild herbs whose harsh smell offset the gaunt boys bathing. Lighting a small fire, for as much warmth as for cooking, in the middle of town Calen started to gut and season his catch with the wild greens as well as touches from his almost emptied spice rack. The clams went in first, opened to deposit the majority of the spices within, cooked within the shell as Calen waited for enough coals to cook the fish fillets. Poking the shells around with one of his knives as their shells loosened and water started to escape. 'Anyone hungry?' Calen asked his own stomach growling, it took significant willpower not to eat them himself but he had kind of trapped himself in the role of team cook and needed to fulfill it.

It took an exceedingly long amount of time, but Teddy had a vague idea of how the antenna functioned. It was going to be a long and arduous process just to figure out if he can fix it, much less actually doing so. With a small groan of discontent, Teddy walked over to the building where they made camp and started going through the supplies he still had with him. The only good thing to come out of the long trek is that Teddy still had almost all of his supplies on him. In this scenario, that means more things with which it might be possible to jury rig a distress signal using the antenna and their scrolls.

Unfortunately, that was most of what he was able to do until the sun went down. The lack of rest was getting to him as he near constantly lost focus of what he was trying to work out. Any attempt to get things set up would have to wait until morning.

Teddy just kept his head down, walking back to the center of town. Calen actually managed to get something accomplished today, and it was more than likely that he would relish the opportunity to rub it in their faces. Teddy sat next to the fire with a heavy breath, knowing that his food was going to come with another round of mockery from his teammate.

A few hours later, after the Sun had set and she could barely distinguish the treetops, she quickly climbed down the tower like only she could; smoothly swinging her way down the massive structure with effortless grace. She landed softly on her two feet and slowly walked over to the building everyone'd set up at, enjoying the twilight as she did. She took the opportunity to respond to Calen with "Don't worry, we only peek at you when you're cooking!" before briefly ducking inside, grabbing her coat and climbing to the roof. She might not be able to keep visual watch anymore, but she certainly could still use her ears. That, and when you had nothing to read, being outside was basically the next best thing.

When the temperature got outright uncomfortable, even with the thick extra layer, she popped back inside by swinging into an empty window frame, landing with an unnervingly soft thud. After staying still for a couple seconds, she realized the fireplace was void of all, well, fire. She went right back out where she came in, landing on the ground a floor lower. Getting her bearing was relatively easy in the quiet town, the crackling of a fire standing out like bright red on a blue canvas.

It wasn't long before she found the campfire Calen had set up in the middle of town (it was probably him), a ways away from the temporary residence. She sat down besides the firepit, eyes unknowingly staring right into the flames, and whispered a hushed hello to the other person waiting around, namely Teddy. The smell of grilled fish and... something she couldn't really identify wafted by, increasing in complexity and intensity by the minute. When Calen asked if anyone was hungry, she raised her right hand high.

Splitting the clams into three even groups Calen offered each to one of his team mates along with one each of his throwing knives, engraved Aldon, Halath and Thran respectively.'It might not be up to snuff I'm afraid, there is a reason why you probably haven't eaten fresh water clams but hopefully the fire and spices have crisped them up enough it's not too embarrassing.' Calen remarked in a good mood despite his exhaustion. As Calen made his way back from Anna the gaunt boy thought out loud. 'Apologies if you have thought about this before Miss Fall but if you are relying on sound is there a reason to be up here rather than by the fire?' Calen asked genuinely.

Settling by Teddy Calen kept pushing the fish around and spliting the fire into two, keeping one raging hot while the other died down to coals to ensure the fish cooked evenly. 'Find anything interesting Master Teddy Bear in town? Seems a nice enough place, maybe we can find something useful in the morning.' Calen teased good naturedly, or as good naturedly as Calen gets, as he looks around at the ruined buildings. The dancing fire and full moon light up their surroundings strangely, making everything seem a little more than it actually was. Satisfied with fish for the moment Calen then went about splitting up the forest greens in four even plates ready for the final touches.

It wasn't long before dinner was completely ready and once again the plates went around, although this time Calen was clearly partaking. Despite all their spices the clams weren't up to Calen's normal quality the fish had a natural sublet sweet flavour easily making them the star of the rather bland meal. Calen only nibbled slowly on his fist, savouring each taste, but otherwise content to let the meal pass in mostly silence. Behind them the woods seemed to quite down although if this was simply everyone going to sleep or something darker stalked the wilderness wasn't clear.

Teddy could not even really get annoyed with Calen at this point. The mental exhaustion made sure of that. "I can't figure out if we even can repair it at this point. Some of the circuits are fried and the thing doesn't have power, but it's worth trying to jury-rig something." he said, putting his weight against his pack. Teddy was not a big fan of seafood normally, and this stuff looked less appetizing than usual. It brought him little comfort to eat the clams, but he was not about to complain about having some food in his system.

Teddy waited somewhat patiently as the fish finished cooking. It seemed that they would at least be better than the clams. Teddy gave a few glances over to Anna. It seemed to him that they had a somewhat nonexistent relationship. She never really acknowledged him, and it was obvious that she did not care to talk to him. He was hoping to have at least one empathetic teammate, but it seems that, as usual, he drew the short straw.

The fish did have a bit of flavor, and Teddy would have liked it more if he had not cut his lip with the throwing knife almost as soon as he began eating. Teddy just pressed his ears down and waited for another round from Calen.

Anna took the clams and knife alongside a small "Thanks." and just sorta... looked at one with her hand. She'd only seen the stuff in movies and comics and wasn't sure how it'd turn out. Though, as Calen said, crispy meat would probably be the best result. Instead of... whatever sort of goop people seemed to suck up. She was about to try open a shell when the cook asked a question. Her head turned a bit, acknowledging she'd heard him. "Well, for one, close to the fire isn't as quiet as up there. Secondly, although it's not as bad as with sight, intervening objects muffle and disperse the sound more, so being above most of them helps getting a clearer picture a bit. So to speak."

While Calen kept busy with the rest of the meal, Anna started on the shellfish. Mussels. Whatever was the appropriate name. She opened the first one and gave it a good, long stare with the hand holding the knife. It looked... weird, but definitely crunchy. The smell wasn't bad, either, since it was mostly spices. Internally shrugging, she stabbed the lump of meat with the knife and took a bite. It wasn't anything amazing, but it wasn't repulsive in any way, at least. Crunchy indeed. Plus, it was 1) warm 2) edible 3) food, so she wasn't about to skip this meal just yet.

Then the fish (and greens) arrived. Anna once again thanked the cook and partook. First, the greens. Surprisingly flavorful, actually. Maybe that's what wilderness does to stuff? Then came the fish's turn. Still hot, she operated in the same way as the shells: slice a good portion off, stab it and bite. Truth be told, the fish was great. She would've eaten it every week if she could. Which vaguely terrified her, as it would mean she'd become addicted to it if the chef had his usual supplies on hand.

Once she finished eating, she put down the plate - thoroughly cleaned - and waited for the others to finish before speaking, listening to the sounds around them both as leisure and to keep watch.

Being close enough to the fire to listen in on the team's slightly muted conversation yet hidden by the shadows cast enough to not feel like a looming presence, Setsuna finally chose, with some reluctance, to get up and sit down by the fire. Leaving the food for the rest of the team even though it looked remarkably appetising for something cooked up in the middle of nowhere, he weighed up every person's opinions on the current situation. All while suppressing both his hunger and the growing voices, ever more demanding by the moment.

If he wasn't in the situation he was in right now, he'd have laughed at how ridiculously unfit he was to be a leader under those circumstances.

"Assuming there is enough food here to nourish the entire team, I believe our wisest option would be to stay here and recuperate, perhaps find a way to establish a signal for our scrolls." Setsuna spoke up softly during the silence. "As Teddy mentioned, it might be that the best we can do is jury-rig up a temporary alternative. Even if that failed, we would all benefit from some rest." He couldn't muster up any more mental strength to explain, except to add "If we're setting up a watch, I'll take the first shift." It was painfully apparent to even himself that his condition was seriously unstable, so...why did he volunteer?

Calen scowled as Setsuna pushed away the food although couldn't openly make an issue of it considering his own dietary plan or lack there of. Leaving the untouched plate nearby in case his leader changed his mind started crushing together the last remaining greens as well as the last of Calen's medicinal stock. 'Before the rest of us go to sleep.' Calen began not looking up from his work. 'Well we have been walking for a long time and very well may have longer to go if we can't get the tower working so does anyone have any blisters or small cuts from the journey. I'm sure we could all tough them out but infection is another matter so sound off quickly if you don't want to fall asleep on top of you.' Calen finished continuing to try to make light of the situation. Hardly out of the goodness of his heart as on an external level Calen's 'pranks' work best when unexpected and internally a dour mood makes it too easy to make an uncomfortable trip down memory lane.

'Well if our indomitable leader is taking first watch then I suppose we get to choose where to sleep, although I understand if you want to have one night without our bear's snoring but we should probably stay together.' Calen remarked, paste finished, in hand and now brushing himself clean of the settled dirt. 'And what do people think about order? Consider I'm the 'C' in ASTC I think I should be last, everyone else OK with that?' Calen asked flipping one of his shoes off to apply some of the ointment to his ankle.

Teddy thought for a brief moment that he could get away from being the butt of Calen's jokes for a few minutes. If he was not so damn tired, he might have had something to say about it. "It might be possible to set up a basic alarm system on the entrances to one of the buildings. Just in case we all end up asleep at some point." Teddy mentioned, not wanting to bring up Setsuna's state directly.

Teddy got somewhat comfortable resting against his pack. He kept thinking of how much hell Mac's going to throw at him once he gets back to town. He was supposed to be at work right now, not in the middle of some god-forsaken forest waiting to be rescued.

As Setsuna spoke, Anna almost jumped. Not because it was sudden or unexpected, but because that didn't sound like Setsuna. Just to be sure, she pulsed her semblance.

That was not Setsuna.

Keeping an ear out as everyone kept talking, Anna slowly got up, stretching once she was standing. She waled around the campfire even slower. "Well in that case, Calen, I'm going first. Because, y'know, A.

As for the tower, making a switch to transmit morse code should be simple enough, right?", she added as she sat down besides Setsuna. Which she had some choice words for.

"I...I don't really think it matters, to be frank. So long as each person takes a shift." Setsuna mumbled, picking up his now lukewarm plate of fish and vegetables out of politeness rather than necessity and taking a small bite. "So basic alarm system and morse code. Alarm could be some sort of tripwire, morse code some sort of light bulb." He was not sure if that even came out coherently. "We can deal with that tomorrow. Everyone get sleep unless Anna wants first watch."

Speaking of Anna. The sole female of the group had oddly chosen to approach him. The voices in his head shouted some derogatory and lewd comments, which he tried his best to mute. "Something wrong, Anna?" he asked, though his voice came out as more monotone and blank than he wanted to.